Jan Hudson really gets you into the main character's thoughts in her book, Sweetgrass. Sweetgrass was a fifteen-year-old Black-foot Indian. You experience her joy, sadness, successes, and failures. .
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The word Sweetgrass has a special meaning to the Indian. Sweetgrass is a type of herb. They would put the Sweetgrass in the fire. Then they would take a smudge feather and pushed the smoke towards the sick person or a person that has a bad spirit in them.
Sweetgrass was also in love with an Indian boy named Eagle- Sun. Sweetgrass's father and her "new" mother, Almost-Mother did not agree to let her marry because she was only fifteen. (The book did not say what happened to her natural mother.) They thought that she was too young to marry. Sweetgrass would try to make up any reason as to why she should marry him. .
Sweetgrass was in a bad situation. Her brother Otter has the disease of small pox, and Almost-Mother has the disease small pox too. All the men who did not have the disease went off to war and left the women and children behind. Now Sweetgrass has to take care of her family. Sweetgrass would give them some buffalo meat that the brought back before they went off to war.
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Right before the men would leave for war they would have a big ceremony. They would dress up in their war clothes and paint their face with red, black, and sometimes, blue dye. Their war dress would have bright colors. The chief would have about ten feathers on his headpiece and the rest of the tribe would have two or three. I think each shield stood for a symbol of a family. They would dress the horses up with paint and cloth.
When Almost-Mother and Otter was sick, Sweetgrass knew the food supplies was low. One day Sweetgrass made a wire net and put a loop in it. Then a rabbit came and hopped right into the trap. As the loop tightened it would cut off the rabbit's air. Once Sweetgrass knew the rabbit was died, she cooked it and feed it to her Almost-Mother and Otter.
